Quote Originally Posted by Kralizec View Post
Which part of this is new or groundbreaking?

The video makes a lot of troulbe of stuff that is commonplace in national parliaments as well. Attendence for example: the Commons chamber of the UK has only enough sitting space for about a quarter of its members. When it was rebuilt after burning down in WW2, Churchill purpusefully kept the small size because the debates and votes would look more important if the room was full and crowded. This is one reason why the government and opposition parties of the UK use pairing agreements where an equal number of their own voting cattle are excused from attending.
That's incorrect - the Commons chamber can comfortably seat about 600, the number of MP's is 650. After WWII the Commons chamber was reconstructed (including the Speaker's chair) as a sign of continuity. The reason for the space allocation in the 19th Century was to make a full sitting uncomfortable, not to discourage attendance but because the Commons are not supposed to be comfortable, that's what they have padded benches, and not desks with microphones as in the US or Australia.

I'd like you to explain these "pairing" arrangement, because I've never heard of them - if you're talking about the shape of the chamber, it's based on the Chapel parliament used to sit in. If you're talking about the arrangement of having a Loyal Opposition and a shadow cabinet, I don't feel I need to defend the practice.